a
redskin that he knowed before and thought he could trust anyhow, and
he's gone off with him seeking powder. It'd be like Jim to dash off
alone and play his hand like that. He figured he'd come back to us with
what we needed and that we'd have the sense to wait for him. I guess
that's right. But I'm uneasy about the redskin. If he's from north
of the river, there's a Mingo camp somewhere about and they've gone
there.... I never had much notion of Seneca Indians, and I reckon Jim's
took a big risk."

All evening he followed the trail, which crossed the low hills into the
corn-brakes and woodlands of a broader valley. Presently he saw that he
had been right, and that Lovelle and the Indian had begun their
journey in the night, for the prints showed like those of travellers
in darkness. Before sunset Boone grew very anxious. He found traces
converging, till a clear path was worn in the grass like a regulation
war trail. It was not one of the known trails, so it had been made for a
purpose; he found on tree trunks the tiny blazons of the scouts who had
been sent ahead to survey it. It was a war party of Mingos, or whoever
they might be, and he did not like it. He was puzzled to know what
purchase Jim could have with those outland folk.... And yet he had
been on friendly terms with the scout he had picked up.... Another fact
disturbed him. Lovelle's print had been clear enough till the other
Indians joined him. The light was bad, but now that print seemed to have
disappeared. It might be due to the general thronging of marks in the
trail, but it might be that Jim was a prisoner, trussed and helpless.

He supped off cold jerked bear's meat and slept two hours in the canes,
waiting on the moonrise. He had bad dreams, for he seemed to hear drums
beating the eerie tattoo which he remembered long ago in Border raids.
He woke in a sweat, and took the road again in the moonlight. It was not
hard to follow, and it seemed to be making north for the Ohio. Dawn came
on him in a grassy bottom, beyond which lay low hills that he knew alone
separated him from the great river. Once in the Indian Moon of Blossom
he had been thus far, and had gloried in the riches of the place, where
a man walked knee deep in honeyed clover. "The dark and bloody land!"
He remembered how he had repeated the name to himself, and had concluded
that Lovelle had been right and that it was none of the Almighty's
giving. Now in the sharp autumn morning he felt it